Suggestion for Shipyards: Stage-based building

[Auriga_Nexus]

Ok so after spending all night working on the hangar bay and launch/landing tubes for Mid-Childa Station and reading up on some ideas about separating designing from construction, I've come to the conclusion that this could be VERY useful.

The idea is simple: when designing a ship or station, you should be able to export "stages" of the design into a blueprint; like first stage, second stage, so on. Then, when you construct from the blueprint, you should be able to a) choose if you want to build the entirety of the ship or just the first stage, and b) use the shipyard/station constructor to add to this first stage by using the second-stage blueprints.

Take Mid-Childa Station for example. The first stage, shown here, contains all of the factory and production structures and some of the logic systems...



...but in sheer block count, it pales in comparison to this version. Note that the first stage area is that tiny bit on top in the center, the rest is the hangar bay and runways/launch tubes (also it has been rotated 90 degrees:



So as you can see, the second stage contains a truly staggering amount of blocks; so you can see why I would prefer to build the top section first. With that first section I gain the production facilities I need to manufacture the ungodly amount of lights and hull blocks I would need for the second stage.

This is why I suggest as a possible improvement the ability to create blueprints that build off of an existing structure rather than creating a new one. This way it can be easier to build larger stations like Mid-Childa here, or to build modular structures that can be used in various ships and stations.

 

[Valiant70]

Cool idea. There's only one reason I don't think this will be added. The same thing can be done with two blueprints. If something like this were added, it'd be a great way to consolidate multiple versions of the same object though. On the other hand it raises the question of how you decide if two blueprints are the same object or if someone's trying to abuse the system to get extra blueprint slots.

 

[Auriga_Nexus]

Cool idea. There's only one reason I don't think this will be added. The same thing can be done with two blueprints. If something like this were added, it'd be a great way to consolidate multiple versions of the same object though. On the other hand it raises the question of how you decide if two blueprints are the same object or if someone's trying to abuse the system to get extra blueprint slots.

How so? I mean, I guess if I were to fill up the MK I Mid-Childa Station Blueprint then add the extra blocks to the MK II version before disassembling the MK I station and adding it to MKII to respawn... the problem is that right now that system is kind of clunky. For one thing the only way to disassemble a ship or station in build mode currently is to max your cursor dimensions in remove mode and start clicking... which may not be very efficient for large stations. For example, those launch bays on Mid-Childa MK II? They are at least 400 blocks long and I created them on a server that allows 50x50x50 block placement. Removing them via remove mode will take way too much time and effort for the worth of those blocks, and don't even get me started on the vanilla settings which only allow 10x10x10.

If there was a 1-click button that would remove ALL of the blocks in an entered station or ship and return them to your inventory, then that may work better.

Keep in mind I'm also basing this partially off of my idea of separating design and construction, i.e. a separate, unlimited "design mode" which allows you to build with unlimited materials and save your build as a blueprint, then taking this blueprint to the shipyards with the materials to have it made, which I covered in the "creative mode" thread. Under this system build mode as we know it would only exist within this creative "design mode". Think of it as like designing a widget using a CAD program then sending the schematics to a 3D printer.

 

[Valiant70]

Ah, so you want to build one stage, then ADD the second stage later. In that case, I like this idea.

 

[Monchoman45]

The problem here is that differentiating between stages is hard. The only economical way to prevent people from combining several designs into a single blueprint is to make people select ever-smaller cubic areas of blocks that count as "stages". When you built each stage, you'd just get that chunk of blocks. I don't see you getting out of a box, though, so in a lot of cases you'd probably end up with exposed systems, or dangling parts. You can't be allowed to modify the cube in later stages, because if you can change the cube, then I can put 30 ships in one blueprint.

It's feasible, if a little awkward. I don't really see the point though. It makes sense for factories, but that's basically it. What good is half a ship going to do you? Or a massive reactor duck taped to a core?

 

[jayman38]

I imagine you'll be able to do this with the new shipyard system with only a single quick change.

Step 1: Standard build of stage 1.
Step 2: (New Gameplay Feature) Select a different blueprint on existing ship. (In this case, the Stage 2 blueprint). Maybe there could be some quick, simple sanity checks here to make sure you aren't putting a planet blueprint on a scout ship or something else equally bizarre.
Step 3: Build the required blocks with the stage 1 build.
Step 4: Request a "repair" on the Stage 1 build which will build it up to stage 2.
Repeat steps 2-4 for however many stages you need.

It shouldn't be too overpowered. And if someone uses the new feature to mix-and-match different designs into a new ship, the offset will be that they will be using a less-efficient structure that won't work as well as the original blueprint.

 

[whooplaah]

The OP suggestion would not work with shipyards unless the station was a shipyard or else permanently inside of a shipyard construction area.

If you want modular buildings, then why not use dockable entities? I've done this with a station, and the only downside is that the HUD can get cluttered with ship ID's (such as the Dormitories Ship, and Medi-Bay Ship). If the room is docked as a turret, it can be turned to make some interesting architecture. It has an added (all be it sad) edition of having wings that can be blown off if the junction is destroyed.

To be clear, the docked 'ships' are designed as a room and docked permanently to a station as a ship or turret.

This comes with limits in that it requires suitably sized docking areas to which the example in the OP would not be able to adhere.

So my suggestion for accomplishing the same objective, modular building and expansion and upgrades, is to have a new type of block: a construction core and construction dock. Basically, you put the dock on the structure where you want to attach the next stage of growth/construction/remodeling. Then you use a construction block to build the new wing/dormitory/room and dock it. These blocks can ignore docking area and instead check the dimensions of the docking entity to check for available room/obstructions.

I think this would be a better approach than multi-tiered blue-prints as it uses existing mechanics that players would be familiar with, allows more creativity in piecing together parts when expanding a structure, and doesn't run the risk of circumventing blue-print limits. It also fits into the upcoming shipyard update in that you can have it build a room, dock it to a transport, fly it to any station, then dock it to the desired area.